HOW FOREIGN CULTURE INFLUENCES LANGUAGE IN

INDONESIA

Anna Diurina
Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia
anna.dyurina@yandex.ru

ABSTRACT
Language is not just a tool used for communication but more of it every language is
a representation way of people life. In almost every language, it’s nearly impossible
to learn the language without learning their culture. Considering cultural factors that
could determine why a society is using a certain word in place of another helps us to
learn the language faster and adapt with those cultures. Language situations in any
country cannot be stable. All the time languages are in condition of changing. Two
main reasons for this is historical development and international contacts. a big
amount of loanwords begin to be adopted in such spheres as economy, science,
technology, i.e. in spheres there is a lack of local vocabulary. That is why two opposite
process of westernization and nationalization coexist in modern Eastern countries. It
turns out that changes in systems of eastern languages proceed continuously due to
influence of foreign languages. This writing tries to explore the influence of foreign
culture to language in Indonesia.
Keywords: language, culture, loanwords, westernization, foreign

INTRODUCTION
Willem von Humboldt once said “language by its very nature represents the
spirit and national character of a people”. Language is not just a tool using for
communicate but more of it every language is a representation way of people life.
In almost every language, it’s nearly impossible to learn the language without
learning their culture. Considering cultural factors that could determine why a society
is using a certain word in place of another helps us to learn the language faster and
adapt with those cultures.
Language situations in any country cannot be stable. All the time languages
are in condition of changing. Two main reasons for this is historical development and
international contacts. From ancient times countries of South-East Asia were
influenced by foreign cultures. They had wide contacts with Indian sailors and
merchants. That is the reason why Sanskrit started to spread through the territory of
the region. The close position of Chinese Empire also promoted the development of
languages. Later Nusantara – the historical and cultural area that includes Indonesia,
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Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Brunei dan East Timor, was under Muslim influence.
From this moment the languages of archipelago began to perceive new language
units. Thus, in Asia were four historical and cultural regions namely Muslim, Hindu,
Buddhist and Confucian [2, p.6]. Finally, because of the western invasion into South-
East Asia, western languages directly influenced on local languages. This was
facilitated by the absence of equivalents for the designation of borrowed items and
concepts. However, the postcolonial era can be characterized by the term
nationalization. In other words, loanwords were replaced by local words, some of
which were constructed specially for this purpose. However, now there is a global
tendency for internationalization and the English language is used more and more
actively. Actually, a big amount of loanwords begin to be adopted in such spheres as
economy, science, technology, i.e. in spheres there is a lack of local vocabulary. That
is why two opposite process of westernization and nationalization coexist in modern
Eastern countries. Thus, it turns out that changes in systems of eastern languages
proceed continuously due to influence of foreign languages. However, other factors
affect this process. First is expanding the scope of language use, its communicative
functions. That means that new communicative situations appear, for example, use
of the Internet as a new communicative service leads to the emergence of
appropriate lexis. Second, scientific-technological progress demands the emergence
of new terms. In this case, languages are enriched with neologisms and borrowings.
Thirdly, changes in the social structure of society. For example, the emergence of a
new profession - a manager, led to the construction of a new word.
In conclusion, why is it necessary to study the development of Eastern
languages and their exposure to the foreign lexical influences, especially western?
The study of loanwords in the sociolinguistic aspect shows that borrowing is a trace
of the cultural influence of one people on another, a trace of migration and
ethnogenetic processes [2, p. 16]. The study of linguistic processes provides the basis
for obtaining new historical knowledge about any region.

FEATURES OF BORROWING PROCESS

In this part we will discuss the features of process of borrowing of western
vocabulary in Indonesian language.
In Indonesia there was an influence of The Dutch language. Loanwords in the
Indonesian language were under phonetic adaptation: often changed the sound of
the word, the stress. For instance, eng. telegram [`teligræm] – ind. tiligr`am, eng.
modern ['mɔd(ə)n] – ind. mod`ern etc. Another feature is that in Indonesian there is
a transliteration of the Dutch vocabulary: ind. psicologi – dut. psychologie
(psychology), ind. kartotik – dut. kartiteek (card file) [5, p. 109].
Although the majority of borrowings came from pan-European vocabulary, a
layer of borrowings from the Dutch language is the most voluminous. Netherlands
borrowings can be divided into several groups. New words appeared in the sphere of
public administration, trade, maritime affairs, transport, education and many others
(examples in the presentation).

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 But it is necessary to find out how the new words passed the process of
adaptation, how the appearance of the word and its phonetic sound changed. These
patterns are typical for all Western European lexical borrowings. Borrowing
vocabulary from Western European languages is a three-step process. In the first
stage, borrowing is a touch. Only at the second stage does adaptation begin. In the
process of phonetic adaptation in Indonesian, the following changes occur:
1. Changes in vowel sounds:
a) in some cases [e] changes to [i]: eng. telephone – ind. tilpon;
b) sometimes [i] changes to [ɛ]: dut. bkkel – ind. bekkel (yatch);
c) dutch [o:] changes to short [o]: dut. kantoor – ind. kantor (office).
2. Changes in consonant sounds:
a) the doubling of consonants disappears: dut. pos wissel – ind. pos wesel
(money transmission);
b) the final sounds [t] and [d] are sometimes lost: dut. band – ind. ban (tire);
c) dutch [t] changes to [s]: dut. international – ind. internasional (international);
d) dutch [ʃ] changes to [s]: dut. machine – ind. mesin (car);
e) dutch [g] changes to [h] or [k]: dut. gemeente – ind. haminte (community);
f) dutch [z] changes to [s]: dut. benzin – ind. bensin (petrol) [1, p. 19].
In addition to phonetic borrowed words are exposed and morphological
adaptation. As a result of this process, lexical units can be formed, consisting of
borrowed and local lexemes, for example, luas areal (area sixe), racun kontak (contact
poison) [1, p.19].
Indonesian affixes can freely join the borrowed words: berfungsi (function),
mengimpor (import), terisolir (isolated), keaktifan (activity) [1, p. 20]. This fact is
evidence that the borrowed word was finally adapted in the language. In addition to
attaching affixes, the completion of adaptation is indicated by the formation of a
plural of borrowed words, by doubling the stem. For example, prinsip-prinsip
(principles) [1, p. 20].
Sometimes it is difficult to determine from which language the lexical unit
entered the recipient language. For example, there is a suffix –tion in English and –
tie in Dutch. The Indonesian equivalent for both is –si: eng. instruction, dut. instructie
– ind. instruksi; eng. production, dut. productie – ind. produksi; eng. realization, dut.
realisatie – ind. realisasi [1, p.21]. The same principle works for sufficses –ive и –ief,
which in Indonesian changes to -if : eng. productive, dut. produktief – ind. produktif
[1, p.21].
Thus, there are the main features of adaptation of loanwords.

FUNCTIONS OF BORROWED VOCABULARY IN INDONESIAN LANGUAGE

We can meet a great amount of borrowed vocabulary in spheres of science,
technology, politics, law etc. When the system of terms in Indonesian was
constructed (after 1945), lexical units of foreign languages were used (mostly the

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Dutch ones) [3, p. 107]. Borrowings in the field of social and political relations can be
devided into several semantical groups:
1. names of new organizations and public institutions: pemerintah interim
(provisional government), kabinet koalisi (coalition cabinet);
2. terms connected with new form of government: volmacht (authorization),
pembagian portofeuiles (distribution of portfolios);
3. terms connected with the entrance of Indonesia into the world political
arena: Bond Arab (Arab League), devizen (foreign currency);
4. terms which appeared because of confrontation with the Dutch invaders:
infaise (invasion), membomborder (bomb) [4, с. 107-108].

However, the English language also was one of important sources for new
vocabulary. From 1945 untill 1946 in Jakarta were published two newspapers
“Evening News” and “Independent”. The language of these newspapers was English.
Also in Indonesian newspapers it was easy to find vocabulary borrowed from English
[3, p. 114]. In 1976 by special decision of Minister of Educatian and Culture RI English
was proclaimed as “the first” foreign language of the state. In 1980 Indonesia hold an
open door policy for foreign investment so that the amount of borrowings from
English rised. Besides, many people got an opportunity to get education in English-
speaking countries: USA, England, Canada [3, p. 114].
There some cases when a borrowing coexists with a word from the original
vocabulary with a similar meaning. However, the studies showed that with the
coexistence of original and borrowed lexical units, the latter fail to compete and
disappear [3, p. 115]. Sometimes the borrowings change local words because they
are more laconic and “save” time during pronunciation: exapansi – perluasan
(exapansion), eksplorasi – penyelidikan (exploration) [, 115].
Not only whole words could be borrowed. Process of borrowing also
concerns particular affixes. For example, prefixes anti-, auto-. However, the
terminological commission suggested to change that lexical units to the original ones.
Compare: antipathie – pratirasa (antipathy), autocratie – swakuasa. Currently, exists
such words as swadaya (self-help), swadestruksi (self-destruction), swadiri (self-
employed), swalayan (self-service), pratibrontak (counter-revolution). However,
some of them are rearly used.

CONCLUSION
The role of borrowed vocabulary – the display of values that do not exist in
the original vocabulary. In addition, it was found that borrowing is subject to phonetic
and morphological adaptation. We can see that new lexical units can coexist with
original ones, but usually when they have identical semantic meaning there is no
reason to keep an adopted word.

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